Preludes And Nocturnes

It is 11:25pm on a Tuesday night. Malcolm is sleeping.

Why am I still up and looking at random junk sites online? What is this power you have over me?  Why don’t I just go to bed?

*pook*

Kitty love in the clean laundry:

Wearing his big-boy clothes

He can really grab things now and get them to his mouth

He was loved by all - got to meet the pilot and co-pilot. Go up to the cockpit. Was taken about the plane. She asked to keep him when we de-planed and gave him some final snuggles.

At his first big fancy hotel- the Marriott in Montreal

Some tummy time thinking about the love of that there toy.

On the trip across the border - rest stop on the US side. He rested.

At Jim’s mom and dad’s house.

Getting his presents from some friends of ours! BOOKS!!

Is worn out on the way back home. Second fancy hotel - the Fairfield in Montreal.

Hello all my dear friends - we are back and so glad to be home.  We flew to Montreal via Toronto on that Friday, drove to Albany on Saturday, stayed with wonderful friends the whole time, drove back to Montreal on Thursday, and flew back via Calgary yesterday.

Sorry to say all our connections were in the 1.5h range, so no time to rush out for a visit.

And we are home. Mom came over last night to see sweet baby Malcolm who was the most wonderful amazing baby over the past week and a half. He was loved and kissed and snuggled by all who saw him. And he was praised by fligh attendants at every step of the way on our travels for being “the best baby ever”.

It has been an emotionally and physically draining week, but things went - all factors considered - as well as can be expected.  Staying with friends certainly helped. The wake was on Monday, the funeral on Tuesday. We worked on the house as much as we could with our time there. We were able to bring back a suitcase full of pictures and precious items from the house. We found the urn with their dog Missy’s ashes in it and were able to sprinkle her at the cemetary to be with Paul and Marilyn forever. We think the three of them would have really liked that.

Malcolm was the bright shining light of the week. When things were too hard for words, he would look up with his wry grin and a gurgle to make us smile. His face lights us when he sees us. He gets so excited when we are about to give him a bottle that his whole body just becomes joy. He slept on both car rides for upwards of four hours. He slept on the long flights for most of the trip. And when awake on the planes he looked around, smiled at people, and made friends with everyone.

But I am so glad to be home. And I am covered with kitties as I type this. Much much kitty love.

xoxo Jenn

Jim’s dad died in the middle of the night. It is such a shock. He was out for a walk and fell, breaking many bones in his face, his nose. He was found and rushed to the hospital, but on the way suffered multiple heart attacks.

What it took to resuscitate him took a toll on his body. He has been very healthy, but he is still in his 80s. They believed he suffered brain damage in the process, and they know he also ended up with broken ribs and some internal injuries.

It was just a matter of time from then on. It was just too hard on his body.

Most of you know that Jim’s mom died just this past January. Paul still lived in the same house as he’s lived in for the past 50 years. There was no sign that this was coming - in fact we were talking to him about him coming here for Christmas this year and we had planned on going out this fall so he could meet Malcolm.

We’ve been trying to figure out how to get out east.  We were looking at a few flights (there isn’t anything direct to Albany), but then found out that Malcolm would need a passport to ender the USA by air.  I just made some calls and the only way we could get an urgent passport is to travel to Vancouver and go in person- even then it will take 24 hours from the time we’re in the office, and that would put us into next week. The ground crossings can use Malcolm’s birth certificate. Seattle was my first thought, but the drive will be in excess of 9 hours and most of the flights from Seattle are not direct.

I’m checking the Montreal option now. Fly out to Montreal and then try to rent a car and drive down from there. We’ll need a car, I think, anyway so this might make the most sense. I’m just freaked out about the idea of renting a car, getting around a new city - all with a 4 month old. And I hate driving in new cities that I don’t know.  I’m just a bit scared.

But I don’t know how else to get us all there.  My mom has offered to take Malcolm, but we’ll be gone for too long. And I think Jim needs Malcolm along with us.

 I cannot believe it. I never would have thought that an infant would need a passport. I never thought that Paul would suddenly be gone. I don’t know how best to support my husband through all this. What a horrible night all around.

And I’m too tired to put a cohesive spin on everything.  So, um, random stuff.

Dad and I are doing the landscaping here.  Holy hard work Batman!  You know that cute little rock, the little small rock?  It is fecking heavy.  HEAVY.  Shovel after shovel after shovel.  I will post some during photos here. We’re doing as low maintenance as possible.  So we want rock, mulch, and some grass for malcolm to run around on next summer.  Yard is tiny - Praise the sweet baby Jesus for that one!  I don’t know how we’d handle a huge yard!!

So dad and I picked out the rock, and so far we’ve gotten three loads of it. Then we shovel it into the wheel-barrel.  I have never typed that word out before and I’m too tired to go look it up. Wheel barrel?  Is that even a word?  Am I just speaking jibberish?

Anyways, we shovel, we barrel, we rake, we cleared out a summer’s worth of growth, we put down that black fabric stuff, we cut it to fit, we got more rock.  Two days so far. And between shovels there is the beeb-wrangling.  Mr. beebers has been sitting out on the porch in his jumperoo talking and watching and eating his fist and sometimes sleeping even with the rock shovel noises and sometimes letting us know it is time to eat or talk to him or, plain and simple, just stop looking at the rock and come and hold him.

Jim is working like a crazy person right now. He is teaching five courses, writing a text book, and doing workshops (one next week).  He is traveling 1.5 hours each way to commute for work. He is working evenings and weekends. Non-stop. So we’re both doing our bit for the fam. He is making the money, and I’m watching the beeb and doing most of the house stuff. He is gone a fair bit during the days now, especially with travel time. Some nights he gets in around 9pm and still does work until 11pm onward.  So I’m figuring out how to keep managing this house with some bigger goals (the yard).  And today that means I am dog-assed tired.  And if someone were to come to the door I would make them step back ten paces before opening the door and then meeting them outside.  The shame of my house right now people. THE SHAME!

But whatever, we need to get the yard done and it is looking good.  And I hope to do it right so that following years it will not take much to keep it up.  I’ll add some raised flower beds and some garden space each year, but for now I want something to keep the weeds down and to avoid mud-central over the fall/spring seasons.  The front has a huge tree that will probably kill any grass right under it, so I’m going to do a ring of mulch there.  Some rock right along the base of the house, and then a few strips of grass in the front.  The back yard will have a nice 15×20 square of grass and we’ll fence it… one day.  This fall?  I dunno. We pick up the sod tomorrow. (If my mom will take Malcolm, I kinda forgot to ask her yet.)

Malcolm is refusing naps today. And wants to be held all afternoon. Therefore, this blog is quick and dirty - like my house.  Okay, that didn’t quite make sense.  Malcolm is taking ten minutes of joy in the jumperoo.  I’ll try and upload a video shot a few minutes ago but it takes quicktime to view.

I put it in my last comments, but I’ll put it here too. Anyone know of a good program to convert mov to wmv?

xoxo - smooches!

Edit: I had to save this as the video wasn’t loading and Malcolm started to fuss. I’m now finishing this entry sans video an hour and half later because my mom and dad are here so I’m able to get to the computer as my mom feeds malcolm!

I was going to load a video here, but I can’t get it to work. You would have been able to:

Hear me laughing

See Rupert stalking Malcolm’s feet while Malcolm was in the jumperoo

Admire my somewhat clean kitchen (I managed that earlier today)

Scan across my horribly dirty table

To see my laundry basket of clean laundry…. and Chuck the cat sleeping in the laundry basket

It would have been very interesting.

Front yard with the tree and the retaining wall.  Mulch up around the tree, I think, and some grass. Then rock around the side of the house and along the front. Some grass running along the front walk.  Anyone have any input or other ideas?

How do I make this work? We’ll try this!

Okay, for a moment it flashed with an embedded link.. but then it disappeared.

Try again

Bah. Okay, let’s post this and see what happens.

Drat!

Um, anyone know how I can post movies on here?

Try again… at least to include a link to the youtube spot.

It is hard work, bouncing my ALMOST 18LBS of beeberness up and down in this here jumperoo!

Are you guys able to view the movies listed two posts down even if you don’t have quicktime, or do you have to download it?

Thanks!

026.MOV

051.MOV